 Ssssssssssssssss Alien 3 is a polarizing movie. It certainly looks cool, it appropriately sets a creepy mood and creates a really cool atmosphere, and it features both Charles S. Dutton, otherwise known as The Groundskeeper in Rudy, as well as Charles Dance, who was the bad guy and last action hero. Man it's like they were collecting badass dudes named Charles, I think the movie would have been better had they made room for Charles Mingus or Charles Nelson Reilly, but the film was a complete mess behind the scenes. The script was rewritten several times by about a dozen different people, they switched directors in the middle of production, and as a result the story is flimsy and the movie is all over the place, and it's nowhere near as good as the two previous Alien movies, gotta believe Charles Nelson Reilly's presence would have fixed all that. Alien 3, the game for Super Nintendo however, well this is the rare case where the game is actually better than the movie. You play as Ripley, in a 2D side-scrolling action platformer trying to get through six levels on one life with a password system, and to do this you use an assortment of weapons like a flamethrower, a pulse rifle, and grenades, complete with a handy dandy motion tracker that allows you to see when enemies are nearby. What's cool here is that rather than flipping between each weapon, instead each face button is assigned to one. Y is your flamethrower, X is your grenade launcher, and A is your machine gun. In each level you find a computer terminal, and it gives you a list of missions to complete and you pick to complete them in any order you'd like. The missions have you rescuing prisoners, repairing power grids, sealing off doors to prevent more aliens from coming in, destroying alien eggs, fixing up busted computers, and of course boss fights. Yeah it's kinda lousy that you only get one life, but c'mon it's Ripley, she can take a ton of damage, and there's plenty of health replenishments throughout the game. Okay, before I go any further some of you may have noticed on the box art that's used for the thumbnail here, that there's an ominous logo on the right side. Yes that's right this game is published by LJN, but you know what else was? True lies, and that game kicks everything's ass, it's super fun. Alien 3 isn't quite at that level, but this game isn't exactly fit to be angry video game nerd material like the NES game was. For one thing this game is structured to be very player friendly. Each computer terminal allows you to see a blueprint of that particular level and it points out where you need to go and how to get there. You can both let the game show you where to go, and look around the blueprint yourself. It's really nice. It's rare when a game back then gave you this much freedom to choose not only what order you want to complete each mission, but what route to take to complete them, either the quicker route with more enemies, or the longer, more stealth route. And the gameplay is solid, typical run and gun shoot everything that moves kind of stuff. All of the different weapons you get are fun, especially the flamethrower, but there's limited ammo which can be kind of a pain to manage, so you can't just go balls to the wall and hold down the fire button like you would in Contra. The main problem with the gameplay is the jump. Ugh. It's one of those floaty jumps where you just kind of hang in the air for a bit. It's not all that responsive, and it's just slow. It doesn't match the speed of anything else going around you. This game doesn't have that much platforming, so it's not a huge deal, but still it's definitely annoying. Also, to duck and fire, you just tap down on the d-pad instead of holding it down. That's one of those things you just gotta get used to. Another flaw I have to point out is that this game is long, and that's because of the level design. Not only can it take forever to reach certain areas, but it's easy to get lost, even with the map, and that's because everything looks the same. So as a result of that, this game can feel like a bit of a slog at times. It's a bit tiresome to see the same three or four backgrounds over and over in every level. The good thing is, though, Alien 3 takes advantage of the best thing the movie had going for it, and that's the mood and atmosphere, and the music here plays a huge part in that. It's pretty nerve-wracking going through these air ducts, just waiting for stuff to jump out at you so you can blast it, and the lighting effect on this first level here is well done. This kind of stuff goes a long way in helping this game stand out among the rest of the pack. Now, there's like a half-dozen other games based on Alien 3, including a game for Sega Genesis, which is nothing like the Super Nintendo version, and it's got nothing to do with the movie, for better or for worse. There's no saves or passwords, there's an annoying time limit, there's no map, and it's lose all your lives and start from the beginning. The NES game is laid out pretty much the same way, too, and both are okay games, but they've got some really annoying hindrances that make them pretty aggravating to play. The other versions of the game, for Commodore 64, Amiga, Game Gear, and Master System are all based on the Genesis version of the game more or less, while the Game Boy version is its own thing entirely. There's also a badass Alien 3 arcade game that's a rail shooter, but that will have to get its own video someday. So yeah, Alien 3 for Super Nintendo is surprisingly well made in certain ways, and predictably annoying in others. For example, the password system uses regular words, so you don't have to take a picture of your TV with your phone. The hit detection is solid, and I love the user-friendly layout, being able to scout each mission before heading out there. No, it's certainly not perfect. The game gets repetitive, and the jump, uh, well, the jump sucks. But I still think this is a solid game that provides a lively and intense atmosphere. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.